Telecare Aware

I suppose I should be cheering the announcement in Putting People First, which is a ’shared ambition’ report - sorry, concordat - authored by ‘Ministers, local government, NHS, social care, professional and regulatory organisations’ and published by the Department of Health (DH) yesterday. It is being trailed as heralding the most significant change to come about in the personalisation of social services provided by English councils. It is great from a telecare development perspective. It says, right up front on page 3:

‘Person centred planning and self directed support to become mainstream and define individually tailored support packages. Tele-care [sic] to be viewed as integral not marginal.’

However, you will have sensed that I am struggling to be positive about it. Yes, change needs to be driven by a vision, but is this more than just a wish list? Maybe my lack of enthusiasm arises because I’ve become a bit over-cynical these days, and maybe it doesn’t help that letters to Santa come to mind at this time of year. Maybe it’s because when I pick through it I see too many cracks through which the undoubtedly good intentions can evaporate. For example, the introduction to Section 3 begins:

3.1 Local authority leadership accompanied by authentic partnership working with the local NHS…

The word ‘authentic’ slipped in there recognises that councils still have significant difficulties in getting meaningful cooperation from the NHS. Councils have until 2011 to align their services to the vision. And how will we know when they have got there?

‘We will judge our success through the views and experiences of those who use the social care system, progress in supporting adults to live independently, objective measures of performance, and the job satisfaction of those working at all levels of the system.’

Hmm. Anyway, read it yourself (it’s not long) and tell me I’m wrong to be pessimistic - please! Putting people first: a shared vision and commitment to the transformation of adult social care.

As an antidote to my cynicism, or if you are a non-UK reader wishing to understand the context of this, I suggest you read the following article published in Sunday’s Guardian Unlimited.

Tunstall press release reveals that “Walsall and Hull have announced the launch of large mainstream deployments of telehealth to monitor people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and congestive heart failure (CHF) in their own homes.”

This being so, it is a truly significant development. But what’s the scale of the mainstreaming? And where, other than in this release, is it announced? You would expect such a significant development to feature on the councils and PCTs’ websites, but I can’t find any references to anything related to it. Tunstall press release. Hull Council search. Hull PCT search. Walsall Council news search. Walsall PCT search.

Web page with comprehensive list of diabetes-related telehealth resources, by the Center for Connected Health.

Increases in body weight are associated with hospitalization for heart failure and begin at least one week before admission, while daily information about patients’ body weight can identify high-risk periods during which interventions can be most beneficial, according to new research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association

The study is based on data collected over an 18-month period from patients with heart failure who were using the Alere Medical Heart Failure Program, which provided data but had no role in the design, conduct, analysis, or presentation of the study. Informative press release.

Research reported in the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare concludes that the programme studied was cost-effective for one-third of the participants and suggests that more would have benefited with a different intervention model.

Link to article abstract. Whilst there, you can view the Table of Contents for the current issue of the Journal. Just look for the link under the ‘Authors’ line.

“In collaboration with India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Intel Corporation Chairman Craig Barrett announced a sweeping new effort to transform healthcare in rural India. The health projects, starting in Tamil Nadu, a state with a population of 62 million, reflect an extension of the Intel World Ahead Program, a global initiative to provide people in developing countries with the benefits of better, faster access to information and communications technology.” More detail on this telehealth story from Wireless Healthcare.

It is interesting to contrast these two Tunstall press releases which appeared a day apart. Both contain the same material, but the second is completely re-worked to put the non-Tunstall material first. And the actual story? Tunstall is supporting Carers UK - or is it the other way around?

First release, 6 September: Tunstall and Carers UK Launch New Support for Carers Guide at New Horizons Telecare Conference.

Second release, 7 September: Carers UK Believes Telecare is Key to the Future of Social Care

I’ve tended to assume (always a dangerous thing!) that most TelecareAware readers are familiar with these essential telecare information resources. Although they are UK-focused, they have information that readers in other countries will find useful. Here they are in case they have slipped past you:

Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP). The main Government-funded source for in-depth telecare resources for England. Worth keeping an eye on as older information is updated from time to time. The monthly CSIP Telecare Newsletter is also posted (and archived) here.

Scottish Executive Health Department’s Joint Improvement Team. Source of official information on Scotland’s National Telecare Development Programme. Includes downloads of the Sottish Telecare Guidance.

Welsh Assembly Government, Social Services Improvement Agency (SSIA). Thin site (unless there is a lot more in the private area for members of the Wales Telecare Learning Improvement Network) but includes information on the Welsh Telecare Capital Grant.

NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA). Telecare section of PASA’s site has all the publicly available details on the National Framework Agreement for Telecare.

I’m going to be at Med-e-Tel next Wednesday, 18 April and will be doing the rounds of the exhibitors to run a series of special TelecareAware reports on the new developments I find. If you are an exhibitor and want to make sure I visit you, or if you are going to be there in any other capacity and would like to meet, please email me now.

Steve

Nine months after the Preventative Technology Grant became available in England, there has been a run of local news items about telecare services and developments. Presumably this reflects the time it takes to get schemes going in councils - so what happened in the ten months between the announcement of the grant and when the money became available? Ah well, water under the bridge!

We have to assume that the the local news stories reflect the information given to it by the councils. Browse the following and judge the variation in quality for yourself. In no particular order:

Herefordshire

Stockport

Cumbria

Warwickshire

Gravesham (Kent)

Sutton

If you know of others, I’ll be happy to recieve a link. Click here to email me or post them as a comment. (UPDATE: See comment for some more stories)